Symphony of Vancouver

The Symphony of Vancouver

This project takes on the idea that every city sings, every city has its own particular sounds that we inevitably associate with it.

This idea came after listening to the 99% Invisible podcast about “The Symphony of Sirens” in which they tell the story of Arseny Abraamov, a composer that tried to conduct a symphony of an entire city.

This is a different take on his idea, a modern version of how to create a piece made entirely by sounds that happen all around us, and sometimes, they go completely unnoticed by the people walking on the streets. Sounds that are so familiar that that they’ve become part of the background.

This project gave me the opportunity to explore Vancouver in a way that I’ve never done it before, not only taking in what my eyes can see, but paying more attention to the sounds that were around me at the moment. Having to stop for a moment and listen in places that usually you just pass on your way to work or home.

I’ve spent hours walking around, listening, taking in whatever I could, and in some cases, some smells that are part of the street, like the food stores in chinatown, or the fresh mown grass on David Lamm Park.

I want to thank Coldwater Road for letting me use their song “Time to Fly” which you can hear at the end of the piece. The song was recorded live when they were performing at Granville Island.

These screen shots show the project files in Logic Pro and Premiere Pro as the project moved along the pipeline.

The exposure that this video got was absolutely surprising, it was featured in pages like Vancouver is Awesome, Emily Carr University, Vancouver Film School, Global News, and Inside Vancouver.